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Thursday, 9 June 2016

"My only sin was talking too much before 2015 elections" – Lai Mohammed

The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has said that his only sin against Nigerians was talking too much before the 2015 general elections, which was won by Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC. The former spokesperson of the APC disclosed this at a town hall meeting held in Abuja.

The minister said, “I believe that my only sin is talking too much before the elections and now I have to pay the price.”

The Minister announced that the 500,000 Social Intervention Scheme of the present administration will start on Saturday, adding that Nigerians will begin to feel the impact of the new order.

The Minister noted that the administration campaigned on three broad areas: to tackle insecurity, fight corruption and revamp the economy and boasted that the promises had been met to a great extent, insisting that the administration is on track.

‘‘We acknowledge that the nation is passing through a very difficult situation at this time, with the loss of over 60 per cent of our national income due to the crash in the price of crude oil.

‘‘Though Nigeria has faced the challenges of ethno-religious violence, armed robbery, cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, militancy and violent agitations, the most daunting security challenge faced by the country when we assumed office on 29 May 2015 was the Boko Haram insurgency.

‘‘The Administration is also tackling other security problems with the same decisiveness, whether is it cattle rustling, herdsmen/farmers clash, militancy and regional agitations. We are not only desirous of communicating to Nigerians, we are actually taking practical steps to address issues.’’

“When we came in, many local governments in the north-east were under the control of Boko Haram. They hoisted their flags, they were even collecting taxes, but today not even a single local government is under the control of Boko Haram.

“We have been able to liberate 16,000 captors from the enclave of Boko Haram.”